Walter G. Secada

Agenda Setting, Enlightened Self- Interest, and Equity in Mathematics Education*

Abstract In many recent documents and calls for reform in school mathematics, issues of educational equity have been transformed into concerns that are couched in terms of enlightened self‐interest. That self‐interest is predicated on the need for increased levels of mathematical, scientific, and technical knowledge for people to participate in the workforce, world economy, and our social institutions. Failure to educate women, minorities, and the poor adequately will result in the creation of a permanently unemployable underclass within our society, in exacerbated social problems, and in economic problems for our country. Equity, on the other hand, is defined in terms of social arrangements as judged against standards of justice. When these issues are scrutinized in terms of equity, it becomes clear that—though there are large areas of overlap between concerns for equity and for enlightened self‐interest— these are two distinct constructs that should be kept separate. This article ends with an indication...

Needed: An agenda for equity in mathematics education

The purpose of this special issue of the Peabody Journal of Education is to help bring issues of equity to the fore of the current mathematics education reform movement. Over the past decade, we have been inundated with studies, reports, and policy initiatives based on the belief that the American educational system is in crisis. A main focus of that concern has revolved around the teaching of school mathematics. We agree with many of the concerns that underlie calls for reform and note that public education has undergone similar periods of crisis and reform at least since the formation of the common school in the late 1800s. Yet mathematics educators should be concerned that issues of

Research, Politics, and Bilingual Education

Bilingual-education research has helped to inform and to shape federal policy and funding as articulated in the Bilingual Education Act, first passed in 1968 as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. During the Acts most recent reauthorization, the U.S. Department of Education and others proposed changing the law to fund more all-English language programs. They argued that the federal government was mandating a single approach, that there was no research evidence to support such a mandate, and that schools should be granted flexibility in designing programs to meet local needs. In fashioning this argument, proponents of change carefully selected the research literature they alluded to. That research was judged against artificially high and overly narrow criteria. Finally, they overinterpreted the research to suit their agenda. Congress was under intense political pressure to fund more all-English programs, and it did so. But a panel of experts contradicted the argument that there was no research to support the use of the native language for instruction. In the end, Congress kept the bulk of the monies devoted to bilingual programs.

This Is 1987, Not 1980: A Comment on a Comment

A comparison of Baker and de Kanter (1981 , 1983) and Willig (1985) on three points relevant to current policy debates in bilingual education shows that issues driving the original report are moot in 1987 and that Willig provides more useful information, adheres more closely to accepted terminology, and restricts itself to a more relevant body of literature than does Baker and de Kanter. Baker’s “Comment” (1987) that Willig failed to replicate the original study misses the point; Willig represents a conceptual and methodological advance over that study. Moreover, in the years since Baker and de Kanter was issued, a new body of more technically sound research has been produced that is more relevant to current debates.